


Times Are Gone For Honest Men

by BigBadLittleRed



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Dimension, Angst, Bad Ass Klaus, Child Abuse, Diego and Klaus will eventually be a thing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Klaus is a different person, Mental Instability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Time Travel, Violence, just be patient, post-Season 1
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 08:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigBadLittleRed/pseuds/BigBadLittleRed
Summary: In an attempt to go back in time, Five accidently takes his siblings into an alternate dimension where Klaus was never taken in as Number Four. In his place is a young man named Vincent Delaney, who they have to convince to return with them so that they can get their own Klaus back.The only problem?Vincent is an Irish hitter for many men in the Dublin mafia, with a penchant for violence.





	1. Number Four

Time travel feels a lot like being vacuumed up into a high-pressure tube, as if the vortex was a chamber of a gun and they were the bullet. There’s noise, the most noise any of them have ever experienced. All of time happening all at once in this tiny space, roars of noise that sound almost like static. It lasts for seconds, but it feels like a lifetime. They’re squeezed out of the portal like toothpaste and fall into a pile of tangled limbs.

 

Everyone is grumbling and complaining as they squirm about, all disoriented from the jump. They slowly start to disconnect from one another, rolling away to try and catch their breath. Luther is the first one to start vomiting, Diego follows shortly after. The siblings are wrought with dizziness and nausea, purging themselves of the contents of their stomachs.

 

Five is getting up unsteadily, looking tired and mildly pissed off as he dusts off his pants. He had intended to take them back a few years, maybe ten, but instead it looks a little over fifteen considering his siblings looked just as they did when he disappeared. Vanya is slowly sitting up, having been unconscious for the ride, she rubs at her head and peers around in confusion.

 

“Amateurs,” He mutters right as Allison starts to retch.

 

“Um, guys?” They turn their heads, finding Ben sitting on the ground wiggling his fingers. “Can you see me?” He asks.

 

“Ben!” Diego clambers over with a grin, colliding with his brother and knocking him down into the dirt again.

 

“You smell like puke, Diego!” Ben complains, but he’s still hugging back, a grin on his face. Once Luther and Allison have gained their bearings, they join the hug too, and then Vanya is standing up and walking slowly over to Five.

 

“You okay, Vanya?” He asks quietly, she nods her head and then her eyes begin to well up.

 

“You locked me up…” She says softly, then begins to cry.

 

“Actually, that was mostly Luther.” Diego says as he gets up onto shaking legs. “We didn’t want to leave you in there.” He insists.

 

“I said I didn’t mean it!” Vanya argues, then looks to Luther. “I said I was sorry.” She murmurs, then reaches up to wipe at her cheek.

 

“It was bad judgment on my part, I’ll admit.” Luther allows, rising to his feet. “I’m sorry, Vanya.” He apologizes, then holds out his hand. “You didn’t deserve that.”

 

“Which is w-what Allison, K-K-Klaus, and me were tr-trying t-to tell you!” Diego points a finger at Luther, already trying to start shit up, as per usual. He looks a little puzzled, blinking a few times and reaching up to touch his lips with a small frown.

 

“There’s that old annoying stutter.” Five says sarcastically with a wry smile, Diego reaches out and shoves him. “Give it a few days, you’ll adjust and it’ll fade away.” He assures offhandedly.

 

“Oh shit.” Ben is up, does a small circle.

 

“What’s wrong?” Allison asks.

 

“Where’s Klaus?” He looks to his siblings with wide eyes, and then they’re all looking around.

 

“Goddamnit,” Five stomps his foot, his fists clenching. “If he got lost in the vortex…” He says with a small shake of his head, looking unnervingly worried.

 

“Then what, what does that mean?” Ben asks, stepping past Luther and up to Five. “You can find him, right? We have to find him!” He insists.

 

“There’s a lot of variables!” Five snaps.

 

“F-Fuck variables, find him!” Diego waves his arm with a scowl, he doesn’t look nearly as menacing as a thirteen year old.

 

“Listen, the plan is to help Vanya.” He reaches out and touches her shoulder. “You need to work on controlling your powers, and we’re going to stay here and help you, okay?” He says, the girl nods her head slowly.

 

“Stay here?!” Allison objects, gesturing to all of them. “We’re thirteen!”

 

“Welcome to my world!” Five retorts impatiently.

 

“What about Klaus?!” Ben speaks up once more, and then they’re all squabbling.

 

“All right, enough!” Luther shouts. A car drives by the empty lot they’re in with a loud roar of its motor, and then the siblings are quiet, glaring at one another. “How long are we supposed to stay like this?” He questions Five.

 

“It would probably be best to just relive it all, just to make sure.” When the others start to protest, he holds up a hand. “However!” He interjects loudly, making them all quiet again. “If not, we just stay here until Vanya is stable and we can make sure the apocalypse won’t happen again.” He explains.

 

“I’m not going back to that house, n-not when he’s alive.” Diego says with a shake of his head, stepping back. “Th-That place was hell.” He spits.

 

“We all had a shit childhood, get over it.” Allison tells him, he narrows his eyes and his lip curls back in a sneer.

 

“Y-You know, if it h-hadn’t been for y-y-you and Luther, we wouldn’t be in th-this mess in the f-first place!” He prods at her chest, and then Luther is shoving Diego onto the ground.

 

“Don’t touch her.” He grounds out, clenching his fists and hovering above his brother.

 

“Enough!” Vanya says suddenly, and they all look to her. “We can figure this out, just stop fighting, please.” She tells them.

 

“She’s right, we should get back to the Academy.” Five says with a small nod. “I was aiming for the theatre, this is a few blocks away. Klaus could be here for all we know, and he’ll be headed for the house.” He allows.

 

“Let’s go, then.” Ben says, and then they’re taking off towards the Academy.

 

-

 

The Umbrella Academy looked as it always had, the bricks a little newer and the windows properly cleaned. It stood in one piece, where they had left it in pieces, as if it had never fallen in the first place. Then again, at this point, it really hadn’t fallen. Luther pulls open the front gate and they all file up the stairs and through the front door.

 

“Hello?” Pogo steps out from the living room, and then sighs in relief at the sight of them. “Thank god, where have you all been?” He looks like his old self, no sign of gray fur or a cane.

 

“Pogo, have you seen Klaus?” Ben asks.

 

“You left me!” An unfamiliar voice comes from the stairs, and they all look up to watch a girl come hurrying down the steps. She’s wearing an academy uniform, has light red wavy hair that drapes over her shoulders.  “Not cool, guys.” She shoots them a mildly amused look.

 

The group all share wary glances between their group, unsure as to what they’re supposed to respond to this with. They had never seen this girl in her life, and yet she was acting like she knew who they were. Pogo didn’t seem alarmed, and the girl was in a uniform, it was setting off alarm bells for everyone.

 

“Miss Charlotte was the only one here this morning, do you care to explain why?” Pogo asks.

 

“It’s an extremely l-long story.” Diego says quietly.

 

“Where’s Klaus?” Vanya asks, the red-headed girl and Pogo give them both bewildered expressions.

 

“Who’s Klaus?” The rest of the children look to one another with badly disguised panic.

 

“Shit.” Ben hisses.

 

-

 

They all meet in Luther’s room, it’s the biggest out of all of theirs. Ben is tight with anxiety, still worried about Klaus, they all are. Five has seemed pensive and thoughtful since they got home, as if mentally trying to solve a puzzle. He paces back and forth as they all stand and sit around the room, awaiting some sort of explanation for what the actual fuck is going on.

 

That girl, Charlotte, had given them an odd look when they didn’t respond to her properly. Instead, they waited until after lunch to congregate for a meeting. Everything was exactly the same, except instead of Klaus, there was a stranger in his place. She didn’t seem bad or anything, but she was definitely not Klaus and that was unnerving.

 

“Are you just going to wear a hole in the floor or are you going to say something?” Luther demands of Five, who shoots him a glare.

 

“I’m thinking.” He says with annoyance.

 

“Where the hell is Klaus? Who’s that girl? I thought we just went back in time!” Ben says with a wave of his arms, he smacks Diego on accident with his hand and then gives him an apologetic look.

 

“I think we might have skipped into a different dimension.” Five says, the fingers of one of his hands pressed to his mouth in thought.

 

“I didn’t know you could travel between dimensions.” Allison says, Five pauses in his pacing.

 

“Neither did I.” He admits, then reaches up to push his hair back.

 

“Well, we need to find Klaus and go back.” Luther tells him, and Five turns on his heel to glare at him.

 

“I’ve never done research on dimensional travel!” He insists.

 

“You know all about time travel!” Luther objects.

 

“That’s like saying Vanya knows how to play the bassoon because she knows how to play the violin!” Five argues, waves a hand at him. “This is serious shit, it could take years for me to figure out the proper equations on this. Time travel is one thing, dimensional travel is a different ball park.” His arms fall to his sides, and he looks almost resigned.

 

“So we’re st-stuck here, and Klaus is lost s-somewhere? Alone?” Diego says quietly, sounding despondent, eyes on the floor.

 

“If he hasn’t gotten sucked into a black hole or fallen into a liminal space pocket and blinked out of existence.” Five says with a small shake of his head.

 

“Oh my god.” Vanya murmurs, reaching up to press her palm to her cheek.

 

“Fuck.” Ben says, eyes watering. Allison sinks down onto Luther’s bed and wipes at her eye quickly, clasping her hands together in her lap.

 

“What do we do now?” Allison asks.

 

“We train Vanya, we act as normally as possible.” Luther says with a slight tilt of his head. “Five starts working towards finding Klaus and we wait.” He tells them with a shrug.

 

“This is bullshit.” Ben snaps, kicks his foot back against Luther’s dresser in frustration.


	2. The Lonely Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this dimension, Klaus is named Vincent, and he was raised in Ireland. This chapter focuses on what Vincent's childhood was like, while the others wait for Five to figure out how to get their Klaus back and get back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( Hey guys, welcome to a new chapter! I'm probably going to try and post about every two weeks. We'll see, I've never been too keen on scheduling my writing, but I'll try! I have a lot of this fic planned out already and a few chapters written, so hopefully things can go smoothly. Hope you enjoy! )

Vincent Clyde Delaney was born in October, 1989. It wasn’t a normal birth by any means and was followed up by a visit of a rich man who offered his mother quite a lot of money. She told the story sometimes to him when he was just a tot, when the people in the apartment upstairs were making too much noise for him to sleep. She used to tell him she said no because she couldn’t bear the thought of giving up her child, her flesh and blood.

 

By the time he was six, she told him she should have sold him in a drunken anger. At the time, it hurt, but there was a part of him that agreed. After all, then maybe his life wouldn’t have gone like this.

 

“What did I tell you about walking in front of the TV?” His name is Sam, not the first and certainly not the last of his mother’s revolving door of boyfriends. He was only seven and he knew that, because he had seen over six men come and go that he could remember.

 

He takes Vincent by the arm and slings him around, the boy’s back collides into the wall and he crumples onto the stained carpet. He knows by now that crying doesn’t bring anything but more pain, but it doesn’t stop the tears from leaking down his face as he lays there. Sam simply sits back down and returns to his show, takes a sip of a beer and chuckles throatily at some one-liner.

 

Eventually, Vincent pulls himself off the floor and heads to the back room. It’s a one-bedroom apartment, he technically sleeps on a mattress in the living room. But during the day he’s allowed to play in his mother’s room, simply to keep him out of the way. He sinks onto the mattress and doesn’t bother picking up one of the few toys he possessed, instead just lays back and stares at the ceiling.

 

He wonders if the man who wanted him would have had any other children. He always wanted siblings. An older brother wouldn’t let Sam talk to him like that, treat him like that, he’d beat him up. A new da wouldn’t stand for it either, he’d punch a man right in the face for laying a hand on his boy. Sometimes he likes to dream about another life, where he’s important, where he has people who care.

 

“Hey, boy.” He turns his head, smiles at the sight of a familiar face that had appeared in the room nearby.

 

“Hiya, Mazzer.” He greets, sitting up with only a small wince. “Where ya been?” He asks.

 

“Out and about, ya know.” The man waves him off, then sits on the floor in front of the mattress. “That mean git bovvering ya?” He asks, Vincent reaches up and wipes at his puffy eyes.

 

“I’m okay.” He murmurs, staring down at his lap.

 

“You know what you should do?” Mazzer questions, Vincent raises his head to look at him with curiosity. “Kill him.” He suggests, Vincent begins to giggle.

 

“You’re mad.” He snickers, Mazzer’s face flickers over a few expressions and then he nods. He slowly stands up, wipes a hand under his nose.

 

“Fine.” He says, a bit miffed, and Vincent feels bad. He slips off the bed and hurries after the man into the hallway.

 

“Wait, I didn’t mean it!” He calls out, but the man’s body flickers out of existence, leaving him alone in the hall.

 

“What the fuck are you yellin’ ‘bout?” Sam shouts from the living room, Vincent steps back towards the door.

 

“N-Nothin’,” He says back, just loud enough to hear.

 

“Then shut the hell up!” The man snarls.

 

Vincent sits down on the hall carpet, listens to the sound of the TV and of the footsteps from the apartment upstairs. A car honks its horn down the street, and despite knowing how many people were around, Vincent can’t help but feel alone. He picks at a loose thread in his worn down, baggy jeans, and wishes that he had been adopted by the nice rich man that had wanted him.

 

-

 

Time passes like molasses, slow and steady, familiar and infuriatingly repetitive. They try their best to go back to normal, but Charlotte is confused at their reactions towards her and even Pogo is suspicious of them at this point. Vanya isn’t taking her medication anymore, and late in the evening after they’ve been sent to bed a few of them sneak out with her to help her train. Five starts reading books on dimension hopping, starts trying to wrap his hand around a whole new set of circumstances.

 

A few weeks in, Five starts to come to a sickening conclusion. He doesn’t dare mention it to the others, not until he has a solution, but he thinks he knows what happened to Klaus. He hates the thought that this was his fault, that he brought them here and fucked it all up. Maybe they would have been better off charred to a crisp after all. But he isn’t a quitter, so he keeps working, because he has to get them home.

 

Vanya’s progress is starting to come along after a few months, and she’s started to seem more at ease with her siblings. Charlotte seems to have quite an attachment to Vanya, which is nice as long as they can sell the fact that they know her when they clearly don’t. It takes them a while to figure out what her power is, until one day during sparring Allison tries to kick her and Charlotte casts a bright blue forcefield that has Allison flying into the wall. It’s impressive, and Luther isn’t too happy, but it doesn’t matter.

 

Five respects the girl, she’s bright and funny, a lot more stable than the rest of them are. She’s resilient, strong, without much of a care in the world. Their father favors her quite a bit, impressed with her powers and her ability to control them. It almost seems sometimes as if he favors her over Allison, which causes a bit of animosity between them. But Allison is an adult, and she knows that this little girl doesn’t mean any harm.

 

All except Five are hoping to get out as soon as possible, their minds conjuring up words like months, a year. Meanwhile, their brother is thinking more in the zone of a couple of years, because this shit is complicated. He has a lot to do and being back in the shithouse they call home doesn’t help him.

 

Time passes slowly, but it doesn’t stop.

 

-

 

Vincent has been talking to invisible people for a long time, apparently, they’re dead, but he doesn’t really care. At eight years old, he didn’t have any friends at school or around the neighborhood. There had been so many strangers he had conversations with, some that randomly appeared, but he never hesitated to speak to them. Sometimes, they looked scary, with gross blood and gore. He had nightmares sometimes, but he had to ignore them because his ma took a belt to his bottom if he woke her up at night. If she didn’t, he’d be lucky if one of her boyfriends only used a belt.

 

He doesn’t go into her room anymore, not even to play, he just sits outside on the sidewalk for hours. Even in the cold, it’s better than going inside and dealing with it all. He just sat outside and talked to whatever ghost decided to visit him, Mazzer was a frequent flier. Vincent knows he died in the house, he told Vincent all sorts of things. He told him that if he took a knife in just the right place, nobody could stitch the wound. He taught Vincent that it’s fine to do things you shouldn’t, as long as you don’t get caught.

 

“No, that’s mad!” Vincent laughs, Mazzer flashes him a wicked grin in return.

 

“The only thing mad in this neighborhood is you, Delaney!” A few boys come walking up the sidewalk, all familiar.

 

“Go away, Darren.” He says, ducks his head and pulls his knees to his chest. He’s learned that curling into a ball can protect a lot of soft spots on his body, because getting kicked can cause a lot of damage.

 

“You’re a nutter, you know that?” The boy stops, leans down to push his face into Vincent’s space. “Talking to yourself like that, you’re a mad faggot.” He spits in Vincent’s face, who scrunches up his nose and reaches up to wipe it away.

 

“Fight back!” Mazzer snaps, getting up to his feet. “Don’t let him say that, don’t let him do that!” He insists.

 

“Go away.” He mumbles, Darren kicks him in the leg.

 

“Get up.” Darren commands.

 

“No.” Vincent tightens his arms around his legs and glares at the house across the street through Darren’s legs.

 

“I said,” He grabs Vincent by the arm and pulls, the small boy forced onto his feet. “Stand up.” He pulls something from his pocket, and Vincent watches as he unsheathes a small pocket knife.

 

“Leave me alone.” Vincent says softly, trying to pull out of his grip.

 

“Hit him!” Mazzer growls right in his ear, Vincent can feel his body tightening. “Do it! He deserves it!” He snarls.

 

“What are you gonna do, Delaney?” He presses the tip of the blade to Vincent’s chin. “Who’s gonna stop me?” He adds pressure, it starts to dig into his skin.

 

“Kill him!” Mazzer screams, something in Vincent snaps, and everything gets blurry after that.

 

The red in his vision fades away and he’s on top of Darren, the boy bloody in the face and Vincent’s fists aching. The two other boys are gone, it’s only him and Darren now. The boy, who is a year older than him and a head taller, is sniveling for his mummy. Vincent looks up and finds Mazzer grinning at him proudly.

 

“Teach him a lesson!” He hisses, points down to the pavement.

 

Vincent follows his finger to the pocket knife lying innocently on the ground. He reaches for it with shaking hands, picking it up and carefully unfolding it all the way. It’s sharp, clean and shiny, looks new. He wonders if Darren’s even used it before.

 

“I told you to leave me alone.” Vincent murmurs, the boy beneath him sobs like a baby.

 

“I’m sorry.” He whimpers, Vincent lowers the knife to his cheek and brushes it over some of the already torn flesh. “Pl-Please, please, I’m sorry!” He begs.

 

“He’s lying.” Mazzer growls, and Vincent nods his head slowly.

 

“You will be.” He tells the boy, and then digs the edge of the blade into his cheek.

 

-

 

One afternoon, while Diego is having a rare bit of free time between training sessions, his door squeaks open. He turns his head, having been sharpening his knives and staring out the window pensively. They hadn’t been home long, but it was long enough to piss him off. He was worried, because while most of them were safe, they had no idea where Klaus was. Five was keeping everything hush hush, and Diego was starting to think something bad was happening and he just didn’t want to tell them.

 

“Hey,” Ben steps into the room, looking dejected.

 

“Hey,” He replies, turning back to the window as Ben steps quietly over to his bed and sits down. “I can’t stop thinking about Klaus.” He says after only about thirty seconds of quiet.

 

Diego can’t exactly say he didn’t see this coming, but he wishes Ben would have gone to someone else. Sure, Diego was the one that stuck around town and tried to put Klaus in rehab a couple times, but he wasn’t the most emotionally available one. He cared about his brother, cared about all of his siblings, he just didn’t like to show it all that much.

 

“Five’s g-gonna fix it.” His stutter popped up a lot more often than it had been in the future, his young mouth stumbling over words he thought he had mostly conquered years ago.

 

“My mind just keeps coming up with these scenarios.” Ben tells him, wringing nervous hands together. “He's probably scared. What if he’s hurt?” He shakes his head, Diego sets his knife down on the window sill and stands up to join Ben on the bed.

 

“I’m w-worried too, we all are.” He allows quietly, Ben frowns down at his knees. “But we’ll find him, and w-we’ll fix it, he’s a lot tougher than we give him credit for.” He pats his brother’s shoulder.

 

“I was there, all those times you took care of him.” His brother says, turning to look over at Diego, who glances away uncomfortably. “Nobody else did that for him, you acted like you were just doing your job but the others…” He shakes his head. “They didn’t even do that.”

 

“You and him, you w-were always my little brothers.” Diego confesses, listening to Ben chuckle quietly. “You’re shitheads, an-and annoying, but it’s my job to take care of y-you.” He insists.

 

“It’s not your job, Diego.” Ben reaches over and places a hand on his shoulder, smiling at him sadly. “That’s just something you say so you don’t have to admit your feelings.” He says with an upwards tick of his eyebrows.

 

“Yeah, w-whatever.” Diego mutters, standing up and returning to his seat at the window. “Get out of my room.” He picks up his knife and his sharpening tool, doesn’t watch his brother get up and leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( Fair warning, this might turn into a bit of a Diego/Klaus fic because I'm trash. )


	3. Vaporized

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five reveals the truth, Vincent goes to church.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( This is a short one, but I'm updating a lot faster than I originally figured so I guess it's all right. Hopefully I can keep this pace up and finish this story without too much waiting! )

Two years after they’ve returned to the past and fallen into a different dimension, fights begin to break out. The others are impatient, they’re fifteen now and Five has made no comment on leaving and they want answers. Ben asks him weekly if he knows how to find Klaus, and Five is getting sick and tired of listening to it. He knows what happened, he knows what’s going on and he can’t do a damn thing about it.

 

“Klaus could be stuck somewhere-” Luther is saying, trying to talk over Five’s argument.

 

“It’s been two years!” Ben shouts at the same time, and Five can’t take it anymore.

 

“Klaus is dead!” He snaps, the room falls quiet.

 

“What?” Allison breathes, and Five sighs tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

“We all replaced similar versions of ourselves when we jumped here.” Five begins quietly, crossing his arms. “We have similar timelines, just a few alterations. We matched the molecules of the Umbrella Academy that existed.” He says.

 

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Diego demands.

 

“It means that Klaus couldn’t replace anyone because our Klaus never existed here.” Five snaps, turns his eyes to glare at the ceiling. “It means that the second we came through the portal, he was instantly vaporized.” He says, voice strained.

 

“Vaporized?” Vanya echoes, a look of horror on her face that matches similarly to the others.

 

“No, no…” Luther shakes his head, scowling intensely. “You have to fix it.” He insists.

 

“I can’t create matter that doesn’t exist anymore.” He counters, waving a hand.

 

“Well, well what if we go back?” Ben asks, eyes wide and glassy. “We could go back, he’d be there right?” He whispers.

 

“Imagine there are two buckets of water.” Five says, gesturing with two flat palms. “A drop of water somehow gets from one bucket to the other. If that water evaporates, it doesn’t mean it’s back in the original bucket.” He explains, it’s a bad metaphor but he’s coming up with this on the fly at this point.

 

Ben’s shoulders are shaking as he hides his face in his hands. Diego wraps an arm around him and looks pointedly away from the rest of them to hide his own glassy eyes. Allison’s hand is pressed to her mouth as she tries to repress her tears, and Vanya’s head is ducked.

 

“But if it rains-” Luther starts with mild confusion, Five groans.

 

“Klaus has been zapped from existence, turned into dust.” He reaches a hand up to bite at his thumbnail. “He doesn’t exist anymore.” He shakes his head.

 

“What if…” They all turn their heads, Vanya steps closer. “Could Klaus have replaced a Klaus that existed here but somewhere else?” She asks, the others turn their heads to look at Five.

 

“No,” Five starts, then pauses and frowns. “The differences in timeline would have been too extreme, they couldn’t exist simultaneously. Two different Klaus’s couldn’t happen, they wouldn’t be compatible.” He says with a shake of his head, he had already thought of this. Most likely there was a young man out there that looked just like their Klaus but was nothing like the man they knew. “The presence of the other Klaus would have been the cause of our Klaus’s…. Elimination.” He says hesitantly.

 

“Our timelines were altered compared to these kids, why did we come through?” Ben asks, wiping at his face.

 

“Because we’re almost exactly like the kids who existed here. Same upbringing, same lives, same personalities, same brains.” He points to the floor, starting to pace again. “We were compatible, the universe wouldn’t allow just anyone to replace anyone. You can’t put a stone in place of a feather.” He says.

 

“God, enough with this cryptic shit!” Diego snaps. “How do we get Klaus back?” He looks to Five pleadingly.

 

“I have theories, but nothing concrete.” He warns.

 

“Tell us.” Ben says, reaching out and grabbing his brother’s shoulder. “Please.” He begs.

 

“Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost.” He recites, and then at their confused looks, he sighs. “We would have to take someone back with us that is a genetic match to Klaus, and in an attempt to make things in order, it would erase that Klaus’s existence and replace it with ours.” He explains.

 

“You mean kill him.” Allison says quietly.

 

“In theory, our dimension wouldn’t recognize his existence.” He says, pressing his fingertips together. “It would try to compensate, and it would hold the genetic memory of Klaus and recognize that the DNA is a match.” He waves a hand.

 

“Why wouldn’t it just vaporize him?” Luther questions.

 

“Because our Klaus is gone,” A few of them flinch at the harshness of his words. “It would accept his presence, but probably wouldn’t allow for his memories to exist. It would wipe him clean and imprint our Klaus’s memories into him.” He finishes solemnly.

 

“Let’s do it, then.” Diego says immediately.

 

“Whoa, hold up!” Luther objects, eyes wide with incredulity. “Who says this guy has to sacrifice himself for us?” He insists.

 

“Not for us, for Klaus. And because _it’s Klaus_ , this guy is Klaus too!” He says with a wave of his hand, Ben nods his head.

 

“I agree with Diego, we aren’t really killing him.” He says hesitantly.

 

“It’s not that simple, though! Wiping this guy out of existence would be like killing him!” Allison adds, standing up. “He could have a nice life, a good family.” She urges.

 

“We killed the people who were in our place!” Ben says with a point of his fingers to the floor.

 

“Not really, they would most likely be restored after our departure.” Five interrupts, earning a couple of glares.

 

“I want my brother back; this dimension took him from us and now it’ll have to sacrifice for it.” Diego says with a point of his finger.

 

“We have to vote on this.” Luther insists, glancing around at the others.

 

“All in favor for tracking down this dimension’s Klaus?” Five says, watching Diego and Ben’s hands raise into the air immediately. Five lifts his own palm, Luther shooting him a sneer as he does so.

 

“Vanya?” Allison asks.

 

“I-I don’t know.” She says hesitantly.

 

“It’s simple, do you want Klaus back or not?” Five questions.

 

“Shut up, Five.” Luther snaps.

 

“What if your theory isn’t correct?” Vanya asks, Five blinks. “What might happen?” She inquires.

 

“Most likely?” Five props his hands on his hips. “We have a new Klaus that doesn’t remember anything about us.” He shrugs. “Or he gets vaporized.” He adds with a small tilt of his head.

 

“I can’t believe this.” Luther shakes his head, leaning back against the wall.

 

“How long until you can get us back to our dimension?” Ben asks, Five looks back at the mess of notes he’s been compiling for the past two years.

 

“Months, years maybe.” He says, turning away and sinking down into his desk chair.

 

“We’ve already been here for two years!” Allison interjects, outraged.

 

“Try forty-eight, then get back to me.” Five says without looking up, he picks up a pencil and starts writing. “In the meantime, we can try to track down Klaus.” He allows.

 

“How are we gonna do that?” Vanya questions.

 

“Shouldn’t be too hard.” He dismisses, then falls quiet, continuing his scribbling.

 

“That’s it?” Allison asks in a bit of a huff.

 

“Unless you’ve developed a knack for interdimensional and space-time vortex manipulation calculations, yes.” Five says dryly.

 

They all file out of his room, Charlotte gives them the silent treatment for the rest of the day for excluding her from whatever they were doing.

 

-

 

The children at school avoid Vincent now, because he wasn’t just some faggot to tease and push around anymore. No, he’s the boy that shouts, snarls, attacks if anyone so much as sneers at him in a way he dislikes. He’s gained jagged edges outside to go along with the ones on the inside with the help of Mazzer, and for once in his life it feels good to have some semblance of control. Vincent’s in charge on the playground, he’s safe sitting on his sidewalk at home, nobody can hurt him anymore.

 

At least, nobody his age.

 

His mum quits drinking on a random Wednesday, just a week after she dumped her newest boyfriend Jason. She smiles at him and says she’s going to do better, and it’s isn’t the first time, but Vincent believes her. That Sunday, she makes him put on his church clothes, and they go down to their local chapel for the first time in six months. He’s not too excited, it’s church after all, but he likes how happy his mum seems.

 

His priest is happy to see him and asks to catch up with his mum in his office. She tells him not to cause any trouble, so he starts to wander around and not touch too many things. He ends up all the way in the back of the church, peeks into different rooms and generally snoops around. A few people are around, but if he acts like he’s supposed to be there then they leave him be.

 

That’s when he meets Father O’Reilly.

 

He’s in what seems to be a small kitchen, a fridge and a stove, he didn’t even know churches had kitchens. He rifles through a drawer and finds a small bag of cookies, opening it and eating one. It’s good, name brand, they could never afford anything like that. He eats another one and twitches his nose, wonders where Mazzer got off to. He tended to follow Vincent around, but not always, sometimes he slipped off. That was okay, he was just fine on his own.

 

“Well, well, well.” He looks up, eyes wide, caught. “What do we have here?” The man smiles, he’s dressed in a priest’s outfit, but it’s not Father McGarity.

 

“I-I’m sorry.” He puts down the pack of cookies on the counter, his heart racing. He can recall the time his mother’s boyfriend Bill had caught him eating the last of the snack cakes and throttled him so hard he threw up afterwards.

 

“T’is alright, lad.” The man says, stepping further into the kitchen and taking a seat at the table. “You know, you shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to ya.” He reaches out and takes one of the cookies, popping it into his mouth as Vincent squirms nervously.

 

“Yes, father.” He agrees with a small nod. “I’m sorry.” He apologizes again.

 

“Go on, have one then.” He pushes the cookies towards Vincent, and he blinks in surprise.

 

“R-Really?” He asks, stepping up to the counter.

 

“A’course.” The man smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners and Vincent knows why he’s got wrinkles on his cheeks. He seems to smile a lot, he seems kind, Vincent starts to relax.

 

“Thank ya.” He hesitantly takes another cookie and eats one.

 

“What’s your name, boyo?” The man asks.

 

“Vincent, Vincent Delaney.” He says, between one cookie and the next.

 

“I’m Father O’Reilly, it’s nice to meet ya.” He holds out a hand, Vincent smirks and takes it.

 

“You too.” He returns the sentiment.

 

Father O’Reilly stands and walks over to the cabinets, rifling through them and bringing down a box of tea. His hand reaches out to rest on Vincent’s upper back as he fusses with the box, then slides up into his curls. At first, he’s kind of nervous that the man might hit him, but then he ruffles Vincent’s hair and flashes him another smile. Vincent eats the last cookie in the pack and smiles back.

 

Maybe he didn’t hate church all that much.


	4. Destined to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent falls victim to one too many abuses.
> 
> The Hargreeves suffer a great loss. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( Trigger Warning: This chapter has some mentions and brief descriptions of a child being molested, nothing too graphic but I just want to warn you. )

The heat of battle is something that none of them will ever forget, at this point they’re used to it, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t intensely stressful. Bullets whizzing by their heads, attackers left and right, so many enemies and only six of them. Charlotte is extremely useful, she uses her forcefields to assist whoever she can. They’ve grown attached to her since their arrival, she’s sweet but holds a dry humor that could almost rival Five’s. She feels like part of the family, and it’s a bit of a heartbreak when they think about leaving her behind.

 

But they were only here until they could get away, until Vanya had control and they could leave. They just had to pretend they were the good little Umbrella Academy until Five got them out. Today is supposed to be a mission like any other, but it’s so familiar that none of them had wanted Ben to come. But father had insisted that they needed The Horror with them, so he came. None of them could speak of it, but from shared looks all but Charlotte knew what had happened on this day.

 

Ben is supposed to die.

 

Sure, Five is here this time around, but there’s something that seems like fate as they try their best to take down their enemies and are instead overwhelmed themselves. Everything always goes wrong, there’s too many men and not enough of them or they get surrounded. Allison has a gloved hand over her mouth in the arms of one of their enemies, and Five is already out of juice. Ben releases his tentacles, they fly around erratically, and they can all see the pain on his face as they grab at their attackers.

 

“Diego, cover him!” Five shouts, and Diego slides behind a counter just to get closer.

 

In all the fire, the shouting and screaming, you wouldn’t think that someone would hear it. A gunshot rings out, and although it’s not particularly special, they all notice the way Ben jerks. He falls to his knees, blood dripping from his chest, the tentacles starting to slow in their movements. Diego throws a knife and it digs into a man’s chest that tries to get near Ben, and then Five is beside him.

 

“You’re gonna be okay, Ben.” He promises, grabbing his brother under the arms and starting to drag him behind the counter where Diego is. More men are pouring in about as fast as blood is pouring out of Ben, the young man already unconscious.

 

“Wh-What do we do?” Diego sounds choked up, trying not to slow in his knife maneuvers, but he only had so many of them.

 

“Where the fuck is Luther?!” Five snarls, pissed off and feeling his own chest tightening with emotion.

 

-

 

At nine, Vincent gets into another fight at school and his mam loses her patience with him. He’s been fighting and causing problems for years, but it’s only increasing in frequency. She’s dating a new man, David, who hasn’t directly attacked him yet, but Vincent is sure it’s coming. She’s been drinking again, it hadn’t taken long for her to go back to that.

 

Unfortunately, they hadn’t stopped going to church.

 

“I’m taking you to see Father O’Reilly.” She snaps, and he feels the blood drain from his face.

 

He begs and pleads the whole way there, pulls against her grip as she drags him through the front doors. He doesn’t want to see Father O’Reilly anymore, they had been close for a while, but then weird things started happening. The Father had treated him like he was special, had talked to him like a friend, Vincent had just wanted a friend. But just a few short months after he met the man, he started doing things.

 

_“I-I don’t think I want to do this.” He’s shaking, knows this is wrong, it’s bad and wrong and he feels like he’s going to crawl out of his skin. Hands on him, old and weathered, rough against his still baby smooth skin._

_“It’s all right.” He doesn’t know what to do, what can he do but sit there?_

_“Father, can’t we go downstairs?” He tries to pull away, only to be tugged back by his wrist onto the mattress. Father O’Reilly pulls his shirt up, and Vincent awkwardly allows him to take it off._

_“It’s just me, Vince, I’m not gonna hurt ya.” He can feel tears welling up into his eyes, hot shame curling in his stomach as the man caresses his bare chest. “Just a few minutes, then I’ll get you a snack.” He promises, smiling kindly, it looks wrong on his face now._

_“Okay.” He nods his head hesitantly, the man leans down and presses his mouth to Vincent’s._

 

Vincent didn’t want to think about it anymore, it made him sick to his stomach. It happened every time now, every single time, had been going on for months. It had just started out with cookies and soda, gentle pats on the back and rustles of his hair, even a time when Father O’Reilly had picked him up and bear hugged him. It had been fun at first, and he’d gotten attached to the man.

 

Father O’Reilly let him help set up for services, let him stay behind afterwards and clean up. It wasn’t about those things, it was about spending time with the man. He felt important, wanted, cherished. He had never felt like that before, had never felt like he could go to the man with anything and just say it. He told the man about the boys at school, about how the teachers hated him and nobody on his block thought he was anything but a loon. The Father told him about how strong he was, about how God tested people to see how much they could take.

 

He also told Vincent that sometimes in life, people had to do things that they didn’t want to. That things happened for a reason. Father O’Reilly told Vincent how much he loved him, cared about him. He had taken every word like a present, tucked it away with great joy.

 

_“You’re special, my boy.” He says to him once they’re done, tucking Vincent’s shirt in even though he had said he didn’t need help._

_He’s got tears in his eyes and on his face, so Father O’Reilly gets a tissue and sits him on the bed again. He wipes at Vincent’s face gently, then runs a hand over his curls in a loving gesture._

_“Come on, show me a smile.” He prods, tapping Vincent’s chin teasingly._

_Vincent still feels dirty, like he needs a shower. He has the urge to curl up in a ball and cry forever, or maybe rip at his skin until he stops feeling so unexplainably wrong. But he sucks it up and looks to the older man with a shaky smile._

_“Good lad, Vincent.” He leans over and kisses Vincent’s temple. “Now let’s go get you a soda, eh?” He suggests._

 

How could he say no? How could he deny Father O’Reilly what he wanted when every other thing he did was to make Vincent happy? He did so many nice things, this was one small bad thing, so he could deal with it. His mum drags him through the pews and locates the father, and Vincent’s legs turn to jelly as soon as the man lays eyes on him.

 

“Father O’Reilly, good to see ya.” His ma sighs, smiling at the man a bit frazzled. “I’m so sorry to bother ya, but Vincent’s been in another fight and I figured ya might talk to ‘im.” She explains.

 

“I’m sorry to hear that, but I always have time for the congregation.” He agrees easily, his mum pushes him forward and Father O’Reilly puts a hand on his back. It doesn’t make him feel special anymore, it makes him feel sick. “Come along, lad, let’s talk.”

 

_Talk. Sure._

 

-

 

They get back to the house and Luther drops Ben onto a gurney that’s waiting just inside the foyer. Grace, Pogo, and Reginald rush off to the infirmary, leaving the rest of the children in stunned silence. Charlotte is upset, but the others are mostly stoic. They knew this would happen, and they still couldn’t stop it.

 

“Where were you?” Five asks quietly, and they all know who it’s directed at.

 

“I got caught up in the safe with some guys.” Luther admits quietly, and Five knows from talking to Vanya that it’s extremely similar to what he said the first time around.

 

“Glad to see your priorities are in order.” Five returns, then starts towards the stairs.

 

“Five, that’s totally unfair.” Charlotte says, teary eyed.

 

“You don’t know unfair, Charlotte.” Five turns his head to glower at her. “Don’t you dare talk to me about unfair.” It seems confusing and out of place for the girl, but the others are decidedly silent.

 

Five storms up the stairs, disappears halfway up. Everyone knows not to follow him, Diego stalks off towards the kitchen without a word. If he had spoken, it would have been with a wavering stutter. Vanya takes Charlotte upstairs with her, an arm around her shoulders. Luther sinks down onto the second step of the stairs, and Allison sits next to him.

 

They had fucked it up again.

 

-

 

When Vincent is ten, he comes to school with bruises on his wrists and a busted lip. He tells his teacher that he fell off his bike, even though he doesn’t have one. She doesn’t believe him, and he can tell, she hadn’t believed him before. But that day isn’t like the time before, because during recess he gets called back inside.

 

He’s sent to the office, where usually he’s sent to get berated for something or another. But he hasn’t done anything today, however there were a few things that the school supposedly didn’t know about so maybe this was about that. However, this feels different, because when he steps into the office, the principal isn’t there.

 

He sits down in a chair across from a friendly woman who pries about his home life. He avoids what he can, because he doesn’t know what’s happening and he’s ashamed. He’s learned to bottle it up, to hide away all of his problems. Mazzer had taught him that nobody could be trusted, the only person he could trust outside himself is Mazzer.

 

“You live at home with your mam, right?” She questions, he nods his head. “Does anyone else live with you?”

 

“Ma’s fella, David.” He had been right, it hadn’t taken long for David to hit him. He had stuck around for over a year, so of course he beat Vincent worse than any of the others. He still had a healing bruise on his chest from where the man had thrown him to the floor and kicked him.

 

“Do you like David?” She inquires, and he rubs at one of his bruised wrists gently.

 

“He’s a right git.” He murmurs, because he’s not supposed to say things like that but it’s the truth and he hates the man.

 

“How did you get those bruises, Vincent?” She asks him softly, Vincent’s mouth twists into a painful frown and tears gather in his eyes.

 

“Wrecked my bike,” He says softly. “Can I go now?” He breathes shakily, feeling like he might vibrate out of his skin. Nobody was supposed to know, he can’t talk about it.

 

“It’s okay to tell the truth, Vincent. If you tell the truth, I can help you.” She assures, he doesn’t believe her.

 

“It _is_ the truth, miss.” He sinks back into his chair, crosses his arms and stares at the wall.

 

“Vincent, I know you’re probably frustrated with all the things going on at home. You’re not a bad kid, not like some people assume.” He turns his head when she tries to lean forward and catch his eyes, refusing to look at her. “I can make sure you’re never afraid to go home again.”

 

“You can’t promise that,” He snaps, reaches up and wipes at his eye. “You can’t.”

 

“I can, just tell me what happened.” She urges. “Did David hurt you?” Her voice is soft and careful, but all he feels is sharp needles in his chest.

 

“Me mam did it, a’right?” He breaks, squeezes the bruises on his wrists and sobs.

 

Mazzer told him never to tell, to stay strong. Because bad things happen to kids who admit stuff like this, they disappear. But he’s not strong like Mazzer, and luckily, he isn’t there to see how weak Vincent is. He cries in the chair, great heaving sobs that he hasn’t experienced in a long time. He cries and the woman gently pets his shoulder.

 

That afternoon, he doesn’t get to go home. The woman takes him to where all the homeless kids go, and he’s assigned a shitty cot in a room full of a bunch just like it. Mazzer scolds him for being so stupid, for being weak. He yells at Vincent for a long time, and Vincent sits on the floor of a bathroom stall with his hands over his ears trying to block it out. He cries, even though Mazzer tells him he's a baby, a girl, a sissy. He's scared and somehow has managed to make himself more alone than he had been his entire life.

 

That day he learns that nobody can be trusted, not even Mazzer.

 

-

 

Ben dies on August 16th, 2005, two days after the battle. He succumbs to his wounds and that’s it. They’re sixteen years old, and once again, Ben is gone.

 

They are all forced to mourn their brother again, after just getting him back. Charlotte mourns him for the first time, she spends a lot of time in the training room working herself into exhaustion. Vanya is worried about her, but they all experienced this once before and Charlotte would have to get through it. Unfortunately, Ben’s death wasn’t the end of the world in their timeline either, and things must move on.

 

They don’t see Ben’s body, but their father puts up a statue in the courtyard for him. It’s wrong, sick, to watch it go up a second time. For Five it's the first, and the pain is fresh, like heat searing into his bones. They’re all bitter, having to experience the shittiest parts of their lives all over again. Five is so close to a solution, he’s developed a plan and done a lot of research in the past few months. They couldn’t go home just yet, not without Klaus, but Five had an idea to get their brother back.

 

Soon they would be home, and hopefully they could bring Klaus with them.


	5. Nothing But Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vincent experiences a development in his powers, then causes trouble at his first foster home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( TW: Violence and rape mention. )

Ghosts are far more present in the facility than they were at home or at school. Vincent finds himself constantly bombarded with a raucous amount of noise, words whispered, howled, and everything in between. It gives him a headache, has him pressing his hands to his ears whenever he’s alone. It’s painful, and he finds himself enjoying being at school because there are less dead people there. Or at least, they aren’t as loud and angry.

 

One of the workers at the facility comments on Vincent’s constant grimace, and Vincent calls him a scut and tells him to piss off. Mazzer thinks that’s funny, his laugh echoes over the other ghosts. It doesn’t stop him from feeling lonely, abandoned, his mam isn’t allowed to have contact with him. His only connection to the real world, even if it had been a shitty one, broken in an instant.

 

Vincent isn’t well-known at the facility, so nobody knows what he’s capable of. However, it quickly becomes apparent to him that he’s definitely not the worst there. A lot of the kids are bigger than him, a huge age range that has boys almost twice his size sleeping a few beds away from him. He can’t even really fight back, because violence begets juvenile detention, and Mazzer says that’s where kids like him go to get beaten and killed.

 

In a few weeks, he has quite a few bruises, possibly more than his mother or David ever gave him. He’s not to tell, because where one bully gets put away, another takes his place. They stick together in the system, every big grunt has three friends ready to throttle Vincent in revenge. Vincent himself really doesn’t have anyone except Mazzer.

 

“You can’t keep hiding in here.” Mazzer tells him one afternoon, when Vincent is tucked away in the bathroom stall doodling on the wall with a marker.

 

“I’m not going out there.” He murmurs.

 

“And why not?” Mazzer asks, poking his head over Vincent’s shoulder. “You’re a strapping young lad, you can take those gobshites.” He insists.

 

“No.” He refuses to look at the man, who is quiet for a moment.

 

“I get it,” He says quietly, Vincent nods his head and draws the outline of a skull. “You’re a pussy.”

 

Vincent twists around, scowling at Mazzer as the man leans back against the stall wall. He looks the same as always, shaved head that never grows and stubble that never lengthens or shortens. He’s been wearing the same red and black tracksuit since Vincent met him when he was six. Being dead must suck, Vincent would hate to look the same forever.

 

“I’m no pussy.” He snaps.

 

“Aye, you are, a prissy little lass.” He says with a wave of his hand, Vincent grits his teeth.

 

“Am no’!” He argues loudly. “What do you know? You’re dead!” He spits.

 

“Ye bollix!” The man lurches forward, and for once in Vincent’s life his touch doesn’t run through the boy. Instead, Vincent’s head knocks back against the stall wall and the man balls up his fists in Vincent’s jumper.

 

Vincent screams, terrified as the man lets go of him in pure shock. When he reaches again, he goes right through Vincent, the both of them are wide-eyed as the bathroom door slams open.

 

“What happened? What’s goin’ on?!” A male coworker shouts.

 

Vincent looks to Mazzer with fear, shaking his head helplessly, speechless. He couldn’t let adults know he talked to Mazzer, they’d think him mad and he definitely didn’t want to end up in a crazy house. He’d seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and he did not want to end up like that Randle bloke.

 

“Say somethin’, boyo!” He hisses.

 

“I-I uh… I caught my bits in my zipper!” He calls out, wincing at the words and watching Mazzer roll his eyes in annoyance.

 

“Jesus,” The man sighs, annoyed and probably tired. “Don’t be screamin’ like dat unless you’re bein chopped up, a’right?” He says, Vincent can see him through the crack in the stall door.

 

“Yes sir, sorry.” He apologizes quickly, listening to the man mutter as he leaves the bathroom.

 

Vincent’s eyes trail back to Mazzer, whose eyes are gleaming, and lips are stretched into a wicked grin. He suddenly doesn’t feel all that safe in the bathroom, not when Mazzer can touch him. The man had thrown himself at Vincent many a times, but it wasn’t nearly as scary as it seemed. Mazzer could never touch him before, and now there’s no telling what he might do. They were friends, Mazzer is Vincent’s best friend actually, but that didn’t mean he trusted him.

 

“I touched you,” He says, reaching out and watching his hand glide through Vincent’s shoulder.

 

“Yeah, so?” Vincent tries to brush it off, because he doesn’t want this to be a big thing.

 

“Well let’s figure out how to do it again!” Mazzer says.

 

“So you can beat my head in? I don’t think so!” Vincent argues, Mazzer glares at him.

 

“Listen here, you little prick. I’ve saved your arse time and time again, you owe me this.” He insists with an accusing finger pointed at Vincent’s chest.

 

“You can’t make me.” Vincent snaps, he storms out of the bathroom stall and out of the bathroom, ignoring the man’s angry shouts.

 

-

 

Vincent goes to his first foster home a few weeks after being taken away from his mam. He’s not excited for it or anything of the sort, but it’s better than staying with so many kids. He doesn’t like being surrounded so heavily by so many people, Vincent was used to being alone. Being around others made him realize how suffocating people tended to be, how they commonly liked to stick their noses in his business.

 

It’s nothing much, a small house for his foster parents and the two other kids they’re currently taking care of. After about a day in the home, he realizes it’s not too different from his original home. The man sitting on the couch and smoking a cigarette while watching the game and his wife off at work. The man doesn’t pay much attention to Vincent other than to say hello, but he doesn’t seem like a prick. The only difference between home and here is that he isn’t the only kid in the house.

 

He sleeps in a room with two other boys, Riley and David. Vincent isn’t too bothered by David, considering he’s only seven and doesn’t do much more than play with a bag of marbles and color with markers. He’s nothing like his ma’s boyfriend David, not an ounce of familiarity outside of their names. He’s a cute little thing with a mop of curly red hair and a splash of freckles, quiet and keeps to himself most of the time.

 

Riley, however, is bigger than Vincent, and he immediately sets off warning bells in Vincent’s head. He’s thirteen, with a swagger to his gait and a look of disinterest when they’re introduced. At first, he’s not too worried but he can see the way Riley looks at him. Like he’s sizing Vincent up, thinking about marking his territory like nothing more than a feral mutt.

 

Boys in the system had a lot of anger, Vincent would know, being one of said boys. The only variables to the equation were how big someone was, and how much damage they could do before the police were called. This scenario solved itself within a week of Vincent arriving, and he found that doing damage was a lot more enjoyable than behaving himself.

 

It started on a normal morning, Vincent had done the dishes after breakfast and then joined David outside. It was boring surely, but he really didn’t have anything else to do so he resorted to playing in the dirt with David’s marbles. It hadn’t taken long for Riley to wander outside, heading directly for them. He walks right between the two, kicking the marbles across the yard carelessly.

 

“Hey!” David scrambles to fetch the marbles before they can become lost in the dirt and grass.

 

“Oops.” Riley shrugs, then kicks the bag, sending the rest of them spilling out.

 

Vincent isn’t fond of bullies, he had been picked on one too many times as a kid and had built a thick skin towards name-calling and getting shoved around. But at the same time, his skin prickles and the pocket knife he kept in his pocket felt heavy. He sits up on his knees, glaring up at the older boy, who shoots him an amused glance.

 

“Leave us alone.” He warns, and then suddenly Mazzer is right there with him.

 

“This twat bovverin’ ya?” He asks, Vincent nods his head as he stands to his feet.

 

“What are you gonna do about it?” The boy asks, eyeing him up and down.

 

“You don’t wanna know, so fuck off.” He says quietly.

 

“That’s my boy!” Mazzer cheers, David finishes gathering his marbles and shoves them into his pouch, scrambling to his feet.

 

“You wanna go?” Riley steps into his space, grabs hold of Vincent’s neck threateningly.

 

“Vincent, let’s go inside.” David reaches out a hand to Vincent, who smacks it away.

 

“Go in, David.” He reaches into his pocket, the weight of his knife is familiar and welcome.

 

“Yeah, Davey, go on inside, ye little fairy.” Riley dismisses him, Vincent reaches up and pushes him.

 

“Don’t call him that.” He hisses, watching Riley’s expression morph from stunned to furious.

 

“Slit his throat, Vinny.” Mazzer hisses in his ear, Vincent rubs his thumb over the engraving in the knife. He wonders what Riley would do if he stabbed him, if he would cry like Darren had.

 

“I knew you were mental, always talking to yourself when you think you're alone.” Riley says, shaking his head. “C’mon then, faggot, let’s go.” He beckons to Vincent with duel waves of his hands, readying his stance.

 

“I warned you.” Vincent lunges, yanking out his pocket knife and tackling the other boy. Riley struggles with him, the two rolling in the dirt, Vincent digs his nails into Riley’s arms when he holds him down on his back.

 

“I’ll teach you,” He rears a fist back and punches Vincent in the face.

 

Vincent thrusts a foot up into Riley’s stomach, knocking him back onto his arse. He scrambles forward after him, climbing atop the larger boy and holding out his knife. The sight of it has Riley freezing up, the boy’s eyes widening. Vincent drives the knife down towards his chest, Riley grabs his arm before it can puncture him.

 

“Help! Someone help! This kid’s crazy!” Riley shouts, the screaming only pushes Vincent further to the edge.

 

He knocks one of the boy’s arms away, then swipes at it with the knife. The boy cries out as the blade slices into his forearm, Vincent swipes again and catches him in the cheek. Two hands catch him under the arms and yank him off Riley, the boy shuffling backwards away from him with terror in his eyes. Vincent writhes, furiously trying to get at the boy again, the sounds of voices shouting a buzz of muffled noise.

 

The knife is ripped from his hand, and then he’s spun around to face his foster father. The man slaps him hard across the face and Vincent sees stars, tastes copper, he blinks in surprise at the man as he’s shaken roughly. He can hear Mazzer shouting somewhere behind him, but he can’t even hear his foster father scolding him over the ringing in his ears. His lips are moving, David is just over his shoulder with tears in his eyes.

 

“Wanker!” He launches his foot up and kicks the man in the nuts, yanks his knife back from the man’s hand and takes off out of the yard and down the street.

 

It takes a good couple of hours before the cops found him, by that point the adrenaline is gone, and he had been sitting on a curb for a bit. He went with the cops without a struggle and had been taken straight back to the facility. They slapped a big old ‘behavioral problems’ and ‘violent tendencies’ onto his file. The only reason they don’t find his knife is because he stuffed it between his arse cheeks when Mazzer told him to.

 

He meets with his case worker the next day, she’s obviously disappointed in him. She doesn’t have to say it, but she does, and they sit and talk about him going to therapy. He doesn’t approve, but it’s not really an option.

 

“Fighting won’t solve anything, Vincent.” She says to him earnestly, while he picks at a thread in his jeans.

 

“No, but it makes me feel a hell of a lot better.” He replies easily.

 

“They don’t know anything.” Mazzer says, sitting on the windowsill behind his caseworker. “This lass, I’d take her if I could. I’d take her and she’d like it.” Vincent grimaces, turning his eyes to his lap.

 

The caseworker is still talking, but Mazzer won’t shut up, he never does. He’s leering at the lady at the desk, leaning over her and being the filthy maggot he always is. Vincent learned more than half of his vocabulary from the man, but when he’s feeling particularly vicious it gets a lot worse.

 

“I bet she’d scream pretty if we gutted her, Vinny.”

 

“Shut up!” He snaps, earning finally some peace and quiet.

 

“Excuse me?” His caseworker is looking at him, stunned.

 

“Sorry, miss.” He mutters, then slowly gets to his feet. “I’ve got a massive headache, can I go?” He asks quietly.

 

“We’ll talk tomorrow.” The woman relents, and he slides out of the office without another word.

 

A ghost, a boy his age, spots him and makes a face at him. Vincent ignores him and walks on, trying not to listen to Mazzer gripe at his back. There are more voices added to the mix, some closer and others further away, see-through bodies and more solid ones gathering like moths to a flame. Annoyingly, they know he can see them, somehow it’s like they can sense it. Their voices mingle in with haunted moans, and he wants to take off. But he knows he won’t get far, doesn’t really have anywhere else to go.

 

He slowly makes his way back to the bunkroom, climbing onto his old cot and curling up tightly. He presses his hands to his ears and wishes that he hadn’t pulled the knife on Riley. Maybe then he’d still be in that nice house, with little to no ghosts. Then at least he had David, the only living person he’d ever had to consider as a friend. Could they be classified as friends? He wasn’t sure, he’d never had any before, and he didn’t think Mazzer counted.

 

Vincent keeps his eyes shut and his ears covered, and tries to picture somewhere beautiful. He wonders if the man who wanted him would have loved him even if he had these powers, even if he got into fights. Probably not, who could love a kid like Vincent?

 

After all, Vincent Delaney was nothing but trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( This is going to be the last chapter showing Vincent's past, the rest of it will be revealed in bits and pieces in later chapters. I hope you enjoyed! )


	6. A Pub Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang travels to Dublin, Ireland, in the year 2019. Their search for Vincent begins and they uncover some unsettling truths in the process.

One morning, after their seventeenth birthday, the five of them slip off to meet in the empty lot they had arrived in. Five has it all figured out, and any kinks in the plan be damned, he wants away from this shit. He waits patiently for the others to gather, sits in an old rickety lawn chair he had found while they arrive. He doesn’t say anything, just sits with a manila folder in his lap.

 

Nobody speaks as they gather in a circle, they all know what’s happening today. He hadn’t said much to them, he just told them the time and to dress in civilian clothes. Now here they were, down to five team members and looking more like their older selves than ever. Life had worn them down a second time somehow, and Five finds it disgustingly prominent in their eyes. They had to leave Charlotte behind, bringing her with them would only confuse her, and leaving this dimension would result in her ultimate erasure. She was better off here, with the actual kids she was supposed to have grown up with. They would take their place as soon as they were gone, and things would be fine.

 

“What’s that?” Diego asks quietly, nods to the folder in Five’s hand.

 

“Vincent Clyde Delaney.” He holds out the folder, Luther takes it and pries it open. “He lives in Dublin, Ireland.” He explains.

 

“Klaus, is this Klaus?” Diego demands impatiently. “You found him?”

 

“I found this dimension’s version of him.” Five says solemnly.

 

“I thought Klaus was born in Germany.” Luther mutters.

 

“Born to an Irish mother, moved to Ireland when he was a baby.” Five informs them offhandedly.

 

“What’s he like?” Allison asks, reaching for the folder.

 

“He’s currently incarcerated in a mental institution for the murder of his foster father.” Five says, and they all look to him in wide eyed shock.

 

“Klaus wouldn’t just…” Allison immediately says, Five rolls his eyes and turns away.

 

“This isn’t Klaus, Allison.” He mutters.

 

“So much for the good life, right, Allison?” Diego says quietly, flipping through the many papers in the file.

 

“Fuck off, Diego.” Allison retorts.

 

“So let’s go get him.” Vanya says.

 

She’s changed a lot over the past four years, her powers are no longer something that any of them fear. She’s a force to be reckoned with, but she’s confident in them and confident in herself to some extent. She smiles more, seems more alive than ever, even though the last year or so has been rather despairing.

 

“If we want to get back to our proper dimension and time, I have to take us forward here.” Five tells them.

 

“So back to 2019?” Diego questions, Five nods once. “What if something happens to Klaus before then?” He asks worriedly.

 

“We’ll deal with that when we get there.” He takes the folder back from Luther, then throws it onto the ground. “Everyone ready?” He asks, the others glance around at one another quietly.

 

“Let’s go find him.” Luther finally sighs, reaching out and taking Allison’s hand, then grabbing Diego’s a little more roughly. Five takes Vanya and Diego’s hands, and then slowly looks to the sky.

 

“Hold on tight.” He says quietly, and then starts to glow.

 

The ride is a lot bumpier than before, he has to aim for a different country and a different time. It’s complicated, intricate, and although Five might be one of the most capable to figure these things out he isn’t positive that this won’t end in disaster. They’re yanked from the ground and back into the vortex, and then spat back out on new ground.

 

The grass is damp with dew, and there are sounds of nearby cars rushing by and honking. Five groans as he sits back, not even bothering to get up yet as the others scramble around. He looks them over, counts just to make sure everyone is present. Luckily, they are, and from the looks of their location they seem to be in the right place.

 

“Did it work?” Diego’s voice sounds significantly deeper, and when he sits up his eyes are wide. “Oh, thank god.” He says, running a hand through his short-cropped hair and down to scratch at his scruff.

 

“Five, you look younger.” Vanya says with a small frown.

 

“Can’t win’em all.” He dismisses, as if he were just glad that he didn’t have missing or extra limbs.

 

Truth be told, he didn’t mind being young, having experienced getting old was uncomfortable. He liked having a young enough body so that he could fall asleep wherever without waking up sore and being able to take a hit without feeling like a truck hit him the next day. If he had purposefully done some calculations wrong, well they didn’t need to know that. He was closer to fifteen physically, which wasn’t half bad, although he was aiming to stay the same age he had been when they left. Maybe he was twisted in the head, but he rather liked being the young one anyway.

 

“Are we in Ireland?” Allison asks as they all slowly make their way onto their feet.

 

“Dublin, to be exact.” Five says with a small nod, feeling fatigued from the trip. He needed a drink and a power nap, but maybe later.

 

“How do we find Klaus?” Vanya questions, rubbing her arm as the wind picks up and blows around everyone. It’s a bit cooler here, not winter time, perhaps somewhere closer to fall, but definitely not there yet. Five had seen Ireland in the fall and winter.

 

“Especially if the only information we had was him being detained at a facility.” Diego mutters.

 

“I thought you were better than that, Diego.” Five quips, flashing him a smug smirk. “What kind of ex-police academy vigilante can’t do a little detective work?” He teases.

 

“You think you can do better?” Diego says with an arch of his eyebrow.

 

“I know I can.” He replies easily.

 

“We’ll see about that.” Diego says with a small exasperated smile. “We go to the facility, work our way from there.” He suggests.

 

“They can’t give us information about prior patients.” Allison says.

 

“They don’t have to give us a thing.” Five says, crossing his arms.

 

-

 

It takes a bit longer than originally intended to locate Klaus, simply because he has no place of residence. After a few hours, they come up with the realization that he’s either staying with friends or homeless. Five has been thumbing through the file he stole from the facility since they got it, not allowing anyone else to see it. He had seemed rather pensive and tense, trying to figure things out while they rented two motel rooms with money that Five somehow managed to get ahold of.

 

They all gathered in one of the rooms, and Allison and Vanya had slipped through the connecting door to check out the other room briefly. There wasn’t anything special about these rooms, but it was somewhere for them to stay while they figured things out. Five had positioned himself at the head of one of the beds, still reading intently through the rather thick file Vincent Delaney had.

 

“You gonna let us see that anytime soon?” Luther asks, he had been rather subdued today merely because their fast-forward had left him in his adult body without any trace of his hair ape mutation. They could all see the quiet happiness coming from him, but they were a bit preoccupied to talk about anything but Klaus.

 

“I suppose I’ll have to tell you some things, so nobody gets hurt.” Five mutters, closing the file.

 

“It shouldn’t be that hard, right? We find him, grab him, and go home.” Luther says.

 

“This Klaus isn’t our Klaus, he won’t just come with us.” Five slides off the bed, keeping the file under his arm. “We only have one shot at this, if he pulls away or lets go we could lose him.”

 

Vanya and Allison return to the room, obviously having heard them talking and gravitated back to hear the conversation. Five paces lightly near the foot of the bed he had been sitting on, thinking for a moment. It’s all he’d been doing since they got here, because this definitely wasn’t going to be easy.

 

“You know something, so just spit it out.” Diego tells Five firmly.

 

“Vincent stayed in that mental institution for four years,” He explains quietly, finally setting the file down. “He’s not like Klaus, he’s listed as a dangerous patient with a history of violence.”

 

“Towards the employees? I’d probably be violent too if someone locked me up for four years.” Diego says, almost trying to put a lighter spin to it, defend him somehow.

 

“It’s Klaus.” Allison says, as if to add onto Diego’s defense.

 

“This isn’t Klaus, this is a different person, he killed his foster father.” Five argues once more. “He has five incident reports where he seriously injured someone, patients and employees.” He tells them grimly, looking around at his siblings. “He’s not definitively diagnosed with anything because he’s paranoid and untrusting, he also apparently has a tendency to lie.” He sticks his hands into his pockets.

 

“Guess not everything has changed, then.” Luther jokes quietly. “Klaus always was a compulsive liar.”

 

“Klaus wasn’t a compulsive liar, he was just manipulative.” Allison says, earning the other’s attention. “Compulsive liars rarely tell the truth, even about little things.” She says hesitantly.

 

“She’s right,” Five says, which is decently high praise. “I’m just saying that we need to be careful, because this Klaus probably won’t have any reserves about hurting strangers.” He says, the others staying silent as they realize the implications.

 

This Klaus didn’t know them, wouldn’t recognize them from Joe Blow, and that could be dangerous.

 

“Where do we search?” Vanya finally says.

 

“Vincent doesn’t seem to be too into drugs, but it does seem he has a drinking problem. He got caught with contraband alcohol quite a few times.” Five fiddles with the cuff of his jacket. “We search local pubs, ask around.” He says simply.

 

“I could have come up with that.” Diego grouses, Five turns his head to give him a cold stare.

 

“But you didn’t.” He replies.

 

-

 

Five is pretty pissed that he has to stand outside, but Vanya and Allison stay with him. Diego and Luther couldn’t decide who should go in and argued about it for a good five minutes before Allison snapped at them both to go. Now here they were, wandering inside the eighth seedy pub of the day. There were a lot of pubs in Dublin, which is depressing. But they figured if they could just locate Vincent’s general area of operation then they were in business.

 

They approach the bar, trying not to attract too much attention. Diego signals the bartender, who steps over cautiously. They stuck out like a sore thumb, something about them signaled to the locals that they were definitely not from here. It was like some sort of Irish sixth sense.

 

“Can I help you gents?” He asks, slinging a dirty rag over his shoulder and leaning against the bar.

 

“Have you seen this man?” Luther holds up a picture of Vincent that they had gotten from his file.

 

“What’s he done this time?” The man’s mouth stretches into a bit of a grin.

 

“You know him.” Diego says, surprised and somehow relieved.

 

“Maybe, why?” He questions suspiciously.

 

“We just wanna talk to him.” Luther says, the bartender scoffs quietly and shakes his head.

 

“You ain’t going to be able to do anything with that twat.” He says, amused and a bit uncomfortable at the same time it seems. “It’s better you just forget it, the bloke’s off his rocker.” He insists.

 

“Does he come here often?” Diego insists, still holding up the picture. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out some money that Five had given him for bribes.

 

“Yeah, yeah he does. Big Jake pays for him most of the time,” He explains, holding out his hand for the cash.

 

“Where’s this Big Jake?” Diego asks, still holding the money out of reach.

 

“You Americans don’t know what you’re getting involved in.” The man on the barstool next to them says, staring down into his lager with a small smile. The bartender takes his money and heads to the other end of the bar, Diego rolls his eyes.

 

“You know something about this guy?” Diego asks, turning the picture to the old man next to them. He reeks of liquor and bitterness, usually a good go-to for information.

 

“Everyone knows Delaney, nobody’s got the bollocks to snitch on him though.” He snickers.

 

“What about you?” Luther asks.

 

“Are ya gonna kill him?” The man asks, Diego shakes his head. “Pity, he deserves it.” He grumbles.

 

“What’d he do?” Luther questions, obviously knowing nothing about proper interrogation.

 

“What _didn’t_ he do, lad?” He turns his head, and they’re met with a gruesome sight. The side of the man’s face has a long gash from eye to jaw, and his eye is covered with a patch. There are a few other slashes along that side of his face. “Got him to thank for this, ya know.” He points up at his face, and Diego notices he’s missing his pinky finger.

 

“Jesus.” Diego mutters, turning his head and clenching his fist at his side.

 

“He’s done far worse than this, he’s the devil in human form.” The man says, sounding haunted.

 

“Where is he?” Luther insists.

 

“He likes to stay under the big flyover downtown,” Before they can step away, the man grabs hold of Diego’s arm. “Be wary, boyo, we don’t call him the Dublin Reaper for nothin’.” He says quietly.

 

“Thanks.” Luther pulls Diego away, and they hurry outside.

 

“Well?” Five demands at the sight of them, storming forward.

 

“We got him,” Diego says, they turn to their approaching siblings.

 

A million thoughts are racing through Diego’s mind, he can’t get the sight of that man’s face out of his head. How could any version of Klaus do that to someone? Sure, Klaus was a bit vile and had a dark humor, but the only time he ever hurt something was stepping on bugs as kids. What had been done to this version of him that caused him to be like that?

 

“What? What happened?” Allison questions at the looks on their faces.

 

“He’s a psycho.” Luther says bluntly, earning a few wide-eyed looks from the others. “He cut a man’s eye out and hacked up his face, they call him the Dublin Reaper.” He tells the others.

 

“Klaus?” Allison asks incredulously.

 

“This isn’t Klaus, I told you!” Five snaps, growing more and more irritated by the second. “The only thing the same is his genetics, environment can have a big difference in personality and behavior.” He rubs a hand over his face tiredly.

 

“So you were right, he is dangerous. But there’s five of us and one of him.” Diego argues.

 

“Look, if we have to knock him out then we will. All we need is his body.” Five says.

 

“He’s a person!” Allison objects.

 

“A person who brutally maims people!” Luther shouts, earning a few looks from passersby.

 

“Let’s just find him and get out of here.” Diego says, and the others engage in a few separate glaring contests briefly before all grudgingly agreeing.

 

All they have to do is find him and get going, then everything would be fine. Diego feels a pit of anxiety and uncertainty start to build in his stomach as they start walking. Their destination is set, but the outcome is up in the air, and he feels like he’s walking into a trap. Hell, maybe they are. He can only hope it turns out as well as Five expects.


	7. Duped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hargreeves track down Vincent and have their first encounter, it doesn't go according to plan just like everything else in their lives. Go figure.

The aforementioned flyover isn’t hard to find, the underside is apparently a common dwelling for homeless people. There are shopping carts, tents made of tarp, and a whole lot of trash. Most of the people around look at them warily, although some immediately take off at the sight of them. Everyone’s dirty and their clothes are tattered, and there’s silence amongst the group as they all take in the fact that this version of Klaus is most likely homeless.

 

“I just can’t believe he has to go through this.” Allison sighs, Diego stiffly shoves his hands into his pockets and tries not to grit his teeth.

 

“Like you care.” He grunts.

 

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Luther narrows his eyes at his brother, Diego rolls his eyes.

 

“For fuck’s sake, our Klaus is homeless, you know that right?” He demands, earning confused looks from Allison and Luther.

 

“W-What? What do you mean? The Academy-” Luther begins, Diego scowls and shakes his head.

 

“He hates the Academy, he’d rather sleep on the street.” He turns away. “I know I wasn’t the best brother, but whenever I found him laying in an alley in a pool of his own vomit and piss, I took him back to my place for the night.” He explains.

 

Five wanders off a little, refusing to get involved, Vanya on his tail. She wasn’t unfamiliar with Klaus being homeless either, she had called Diego a few times before she wrote the book just to tell him where Klaus was and what he was doing if she saw him. They were always brief conversations, just information, and then Diego was off to fetch their brother. Sometimes Vanya was still there when he got there, sometimes she wasn’t. He got how difficult it could be to see someone they cared about half-naked and covered in throw up.

 

“I thought… When I offered you money for rehab, I thought he lived with you.” Allison says quietly.

 

“No, Allison, fuck!” He reaches up and runs a hand through his hair anxiously. “I can’t watch him all the time, he won’t stay put if I’m not watching him.” He sighs, feeling disappointed in himself still. The guilt ate away at him sometimes, he let Klaus bum rides and sleep on his mattress, but nothing would take away the pain of watching his brother slowly kill himself.

 

“So what, he just lives like this?” Allison questions, her eyes a little watery as she gestures around.

 

“He sleeps in alleys when he can’t find someone to take him home.” Diego admits, crossing his arms. “He sleeps with people, for money, for drugs, for a place to sleep.” He lists, watching Luther grow more and more pale by the second.

 

“Why didn’t you say something?” Luther insists.

 

“Because you weren’t around!” Diego snaps, earning a couple wary looks from the volume of his voice. “I was the one scraping Klaus off the street, before I got kicked out of the academy, I used to be the one to intercept calls to arrest him and let him go.” He says a bit quieter.

 

“You never said-” Allison starts, but Diego speaks anyway.

 

“He didn’t want your help, he begged me n-not to say anything.” He blurts. “I take care of him, w-when I can, but I can’t control him.” He confesses.

 

“Diego, I’m sorry.” Allison says softly, stepping closer to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. “I should have been more involved.”

 

“No, you shouldn’t have.” He shakes his head, reaching out and pulling his sister into a hug. “But it’s okay, we’re gonna get him back.” He insists.

 

“If you three are done,” They turn their heads, finding Five holding up the edge of a tarp tent. “The _Reaper_ lives here.” He says sarcastically, the others move to join him and Vanya.

 

Under the tarp are a few miscellaneous items, but mostly it seems like trash. There’s a tattered blanket, a couple of empty bottles of liquor, and a bunch of candy wrappers. Under the blanket is a worn stuffed dog, missing one eye and its tail. Five picks it up with a small grimace, the thing is filthy like the blanket.

 

“Shouldn’t he watch his stuff?” Diego asks, knowing that a lot of times homeless people are possessive of their few belongings for fear of something being stolen.

 

“These people are terrified of him,” Five tells him, digs a hand into a badly stitched place of the stuffed dog, pulling out a small pocket knife. He hands it over to Luther, who frowns down at it as he twists it in his fingers. “They won’t look twice at him let alone steal from him.”

 

“Sounds lonely.” Vanya says quietly, fidgeting with one of the tassel ends of the blanket.

 

“Yeah, well, being a criminal does that.” Luther says.

 

“Fuck off, Luther.” Diego pushes at his shoulder, Luther shoots him a glare but doesn’t say anything else to escalate the situation.

 

“Darren Brady,” Luther says instead of retaliation, turning the pocket knife for Diego and Allison to see.

 

“He probably stole it,” Five says, seeming mildly bored before standing up and dusting off his knees. “We should find a vantage point to watch for his return.” He explains.

 

“Why not just wait for him here?” Luther asks.

 

“Because the second he sees us, he’ll take off.” Diego says as Five shoots their leader an exasperated expression.

 

“Right.” Luther mutters.

 

-

 

They wait for a few hours, and Luther is getting impatient after a while. The others are fidgety except Five and Diego, who are perfectly still with their eyes trained on the camp down below. They were both used to long stakeouts, stalking prey in their own way. Luther has been pacing for the past few minutes, and it’s starting to get on Diego’s nerves.

 

“If I have to tell you to stop again, I’ll cut out your kneecaps.” Five calls out, Luther rolls his eyes and sinks down between Allison and Diego.

 

“This is ridiculous, what if he doesn’t come back?” He demands.

 

“Shut up.” Five replies simply, Diego tries to hide a smirk in his hand, getting shoved in the shoulder for it.

 

“I didn’t say anything.” He defends himself with a muffled laugh.

 

“Yeah, right.” Luther grumbles.

 

Just then, someone comes down the hill towards the underside of the flyover. Diego almost doesn’t recognize him, it’s the same scrawny and lanky body, just with a lot more hair. Klaus, or Vincent really, has long messy hair that’s curled down over his ears and against his neck. Klaus never had his hair that long, their father never quite allowed it and Klaus once told him after he moved out that having it long was a problem considering he rarely showered.

 

Vincent is dressed in a long-sleeve black shirt with fingerless gloves, and baggy jeans. He looks almost nothing like Klaus would, he looks like a normal homeless guy, and Klaus never looked normal. He’s got a large backpack over his shoulders. There’s a familiar stagger to his gait, something a bit inebriated, but he slides down the hill and over towards the tent with relative ease.

 

“That’s him,” Diego says quietly.

 

“I see him.” Five agrees.

 

They watch the young man slide under the tarp and disappear into his makeshift tent. It takes all of fifteen seconds before he’s slipping out of the tarp and walking away. They watch him climb up the hill again and start heading towards the road, they all get to their feet.

 

“Now what?” Allison hisses.

 

“We trail him.” Luther says, and then they’re following.

 

-

 

They try to follow at a safe distance, but there aren’t too many people around so a group of people is hard to hide. Diego and Five take the lead, walking together while Vanya, Luther, and Allison hang back a little further away. They follow Vincent about a block, before he suddenly turns into a parking garage. It’s a casual movement, but something feels off, and Diego knows that Five realizes this too.

 

Five and Diego briefly pause as they watch him disappear, and then Five is grabbing Diego’s hand and going in after him. The stairwell door clangs shut as they reach the stairwell. By the time they get into the first level of the parking garage, the others have hurried to catch up and they gather near the door.

 

They slowly start heading upstairs, keeping quiet and making sure to look around as they reach each floor. On the third floor, Diego spots Vincent walking down the aisle of cars about fifteen feet away. They scurry to hide behind a few cars, as silently as possible switching from car to car to trail him. After a minute or so of Vincent casually walking, he turns a corner.

 

“What do we do?” Allison asks softly.

 

“We might have to grab him.” Diego says.

 

“Carefully, Luther I might need you to-” Five gets cut off as all hell breaks loose.

 

Vanya lets out a frightened yelp as she’s grabbed from behind, yanked upright and a large knife pressed to her throat. Vincent holds her firmly, teeth bared in a snarl and eyes wild. The most noticeable thing is that he has a gruesome scar on his cheek, like half of a Glasgow smile, it went from the corner of his mouth almost all the way across his face. Clean but pink, like it had been there for a while but hadn’t had enough time to fully heal.

 

“Easy, easy!” Diego says, his hands up in a peaceful gesture.

 

“Who sent you?” Vincent demands, presses the blade a little closer to Vanya’s throat.

 

“Nobody, we want to talk to you.” Allison says, Vincent laughs in response, something mean and bitter.

 

“Just want a chat, well why didn’t you say so?” The accent sounds ridiculous coming from Klaus’s mouth, something heavy and overwhelmingly Irish. Diego doesn’t know what else he expected, it just doesn’t sound right.

 

“Let her go.” Luther tells him, taking half a step forward.

 

“You come any closer, big fella, and dis parking garage is going to be covered in blood.” He warns, taking a step back and dragging Vanya with him.

 

Before any of them can interfere, the sound of a horn honking echoes through the parking lot. It reverberates through the garage, getting louder and louder. Vanya’s power is like wind, blowing through all of them. Suddenly, Vincent is thrown away from Vanya like something had slammed into him. He hits the pavement and rolls, eyes wide as he scrambles to sit up.

 

“Vanya,” Diego reaches out and grabs his sister, knowing that she had done it. He pushes the woman behind him, who goes easily.

 

“Who are you?” Vincent gets up, holding out his knife and looking worried suddenly. “Whattaya want?” He demands.

 

“Put the knife down, let’s talk.” Five says calmly.

 

“Yer a kid, boyo, let the grown-ups chat, yeah?” He waves the knife at Five, Diego watches the young man’s expression darken.

 

“Grab him.” Five snaps, disappearing in a flash of blue and reappearing behind him. He kicks out a leg into the back of Vincent’s knee, the man staggering forward as Luther lunges for him.

 

Vincent dodges and slams into Diego, the two grappling with one another. Diego tries to punch him out, Vincent easily ducks and tries to swipe at him with his knife. Diego jumps back, grabs the man’s arm and twists, he drops the knife but swipes a leg into Diego’s. Diego staggers back as Vincent pushes him into a car, his expression unnervingly cruel.

 

Luther grabs Vincent from behind, yanking him into the air. The young man reaches back, grabs the back of Luther’s neck and knocks his head back into Luther’s face. The man grunts in pain and lets Vincent go, who launches himself onto the ground and grabs his knife again. He rolls out of the way of Luther’s grasp, standing up and meeting face to face with Allison.

 

“I heard a rumor that-” Vincent launches a hand out at her and she flies back into a nearby wall before she can finish.

 

“Shit.” Five curses, and they’re all stunned at the sight of Allison crumpling to the ground.

 

“Hey!” Luther tries again to go after Vincent, but he’s ready this time. Vincent vaults himself forward and grabs onto Luther’s shoulders before jumping, using his shoulders as leverage to flip over him far too easily and taking off running through the parking lot.

 

“Vanya, get Allison!” Diego snaps. The others immediately give chase, but the man is extremely fast as he leads them up to the roof. He runs all the way to the edge of the building, stopping and looking back to see if they’re still following him.

 

“Stop!” Luther calls as the young man steps up onto the rails, sliding over them and onto the other side.

 

“If he dies, we can’t get Klaus back.” Five snarls, teleporting forward and grabbing hold of the man’s shirt.

 

“Let go! Fuckin’ chiseler!” Vincent scrabbles at Five’s grip, trying to push him away. They struggle with his knife, Vincent cuts Five in the arm and boy barely flinches in response. He smacks the knife out of Vincent’s hand again and it tumbles down to the pavement below. Vincent turns his head slightly, distracted at the loss but holding firm to Five’s blazer lapels.

 

“Get back over here, you idiot!” He snarls, taking a firmer hold of Vincent’s shirt collar and the back of his pants as the others reach them. Vincent grabs a handful of Five’s hair, and forces him away, then leaps off the edge of the parking garage. He plummets out of view without a sound, only a brief glimpse of matted curls and raised arms before he's gone.

 

“No!” There’s a chorus of alarm that runs through Luther, Diego, and Five. Diego and Luther skid to a stop a few feet away, panting with wide eyes. Five hurries to lean over the ledge, looking down below, and Allison and Vanya are racing to catch up.

 

“Where is he? Where’d he go?” Allison asks, looking only slightly winded from being thrown into a wall.

 

“He jumped.” Luther says, looking horrified. Diego covers his face with a hand, trying not to let tears well into his eyes.

 

“O-Oh god.” Vanya’s voice trembles.

 

“He played us.” Five says suddenly, pointing down below. “The asshole can levitate.” He points, they all rush to the rails to look. Vincent is all the way down on the street, racing down the sidewalk away from them, already forty feet away.

 

“Son of a bitch!” Diego bangs his fists against the rails in frustration.

 

“Now how are we going to find him?” Allison sighs, leaning against the rails tiredly.

 

“I need a drink and a nap.” Five says instead of responding, turning on his heel and cradling his injured arm to his chest as he walks away.


	8. The Assailant

They had all retreated to the motel after their rather embarrassing defeat, considering there had been a definite advantage in their five-to-one battle. They hadn’t expected Vincent to have any sort of powers beyond what Klaus had ever shown, and that was what caught them so off guard. Levitation, telekinesis of some sort, everyone except Five was in a pensive stupor over it. Hell, even Five seemed rather pissed over it, like he had been duped and that rarely happened.

 

Five himself is currently napping in one of the rooms, having demanded everyone go into the other room before slamming the connecting door behind all of them. He was a moody little brat, even now, but they weren’t going to argue with him considering he was sort of the only one who knew what was going on. Instead, they just get comfortable in the other room and wait. However, it doesn’t take long for questions to be voiced, and conversations to start up.

 

“How could Vincent have powers that Klaus doesn’t?” Vanya asks, sitting against the headboard of one of the beds.

 

“Maybe in this dimension he got different powers.” Luther sinks down onto the small bed Vanya is on, the mattress creaking under his weight. “On the downside, this Klaus seems just as much of a nuisance as our Klaus, if not more.” He mutters.

 

“Five didn’t say anything about altered powers, we all still have the same powers.” Diego says with a small shake of his head.

 

“Dad always said that he never fulfilled his potential.” Allison interjects, causing the rest of them pause.

 

“So Vincent unlocked powers that Klaus never did, which means that he’s probably even more dangerous.” Luther sighs tiredly, wipes a hand down his face.

 

“We should be tracking him down, not waiting around here.” Allison says.

 

“Five said we’ll keep looking when he wakes up.” Vanya interjects quietly.

 

“Since when is Five in charge?” Luther stands up, looking between Diego and Allison. “Let’s go hunt Klaus down and we’ll knock him out and drag him back here.”

 

“That sounds like another half-assed plan.” Diego says cautiously.

 

“Got any other ideas?” Luther fires back.

 

-

 

Five awakes to the sound of someone’s headboard slamming repeatedly against the wall on the other side of his room. It’s not the prettiest wake-up call, but it’s one nonetheless and he supposes he can’t sleep forever. He still feels a bit tired, but he knows that some coffee and maybe even a glazed donut would perk him up significantly. When he sits up, he realizes that his own room is rather empty.

 

He checks the time, finding it three hours after he had drifted off. Odd, he figured that the others would have pestered him after an hour. He slides off the gross motel bed, it had served its purpose, but he wouldn’t call it comfortable, and heads into the adjoining room next to his own. A scowl finds his face when he realizes that room is empty as well.

 

“Bastards.” He grunts, then turns on his heel and storms towards the front door.

 

He’d find them and show all of them what happens when they leave him behind, the ungrateful brats. He goes through all this trouble and wants one measly nap after a rather impressive time and location jump, and they abandon him? No, this won’t stand, not on his watch.

 

Five finds himself walking down the street, unsure as to where he’s going but certain he’ll eventually find the others. It’s hard to miss a bunch of people like them, they would stick out like a sore thumb in this place. All he had to do was puzzle out where they went looking for Vincent at. He stops on a street corner, fists pressed to his hips.

 

One second, he’s thinking about kicking Luther in the nuts- knowing that he’s most likely the reason for the others wandering off- and then the next he’s being shot at. A sniper’s bullet pierces a sign just behind him and Five throws himself behind a nearby brick wall. Another shot follows him, and he peers out to search for the assailant. Another bullet fires off and he barely ducks away in time, some brick crumbling under the impact of the gunfire.

 

He scoffs, wondering who the hell would want him in this dimension. Sure, The Commission was not happy with him in their own timeline, but they weren’t in their own timeline anymore. But it seems professional, although sloppy, which meant that they weren’t expecting Five to be who he is. This tells a lot, and means that most likely this hit was uniformed and purposeful. He’s contemplating this, hearing distant sirens, and then suddenly a car is pulling up to the curb.

 

“Get in!” He spots a familiar face behind the wheel, the only startling difference being that awful cheek scar.

 

Five keeps in a crouch, scurrying to the car and yanking the passenger door open. Another shot ricochets off of the car, Vincent ducks further against the steering wheel and Five slams the door shut. Vincent yanks the car into gear and slams his foot down on the pedal, speeding down the street. Five goes to sit up, letting out a growl of agitation when the man in the driver’s seat reaches over and forces him back down by the back of his neck.

 

“Don’t touch me!” He grabs Vincent’s finger and bends it back; the man hisses and pulls it away.

 

“All right, no need to have a fit, lad.” He mutters, tucking his fingers into his fist and settling his arm in his lap.

 

“Why are you here?” Five asks bluntly, the man glances in the rearview mirror.

 

“Just a moment,” He jerks the steering wheel and speeds up. There’s a traffic light up ahead, the light turns to yellow and then to red. “Hold on!” They race through the red light, swerving to avoid being hit by a truck.

 

“You’re as bad as Klaus.” Five mutters under his breath.

 

“What’s that, then?” Vincent turns his head, green eyes searching Five’s face rapidly.

 

“Nothing.” He relaxes into his seat an increment and then reaches back to put his seatbelt on.

 

“Shut the hell up, a’right? He’s a kid.” Vincent says suddenly after a brief moment of silence.

 

Five glances over at Vincent, notes that his gaze is switching from the road to the rearview mirror. His shoulders are tense, and his earlier injured hand goes up to clench at the wheel like its twin. He twitches, something compulsive and a little startling. Vincent somehow has managed to look worse than Five’s seen Klaus look in his short time home before they left.

 

His hair is matted, curls tangled and greasy, his clothes look like he’s been wearing them for weeks. There’s a pair of black fingerless gloves on his hands with little flaps that go over them to make mittens for when it’s colder. His face looks dirty, his fingernails are filthy, he looks like he’s been living on the street for years. Five thinks back to the folder he had been reading, hadn’t let the others see it.

_Paranoid delusions._

_Aggressive with violent tendencies._

_Signs of long-term sexual abuse._

“Stop lookin’ at me.” Vincent says, voice low and completely serious, he doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “Didn’t your mum teach you it’s impolite to stare?”

 

“Why’d you help me?” He asks, instead of addressing the fact that he’s the one that made Five get in the car in the first place. Most likely if he offered too much hostility, Vincent might get violent or combative and not want to cooperate.

 

“Information.” Vincent replies quietly, he’s still speeding but not as badly as before.

 

Five isn’t sure where they’re headed, but he’s not worried, he can always teleport out if Vincent tries to hurt him. He won’t take offense to it, he thinks, simply because if he were in the man’s place, he’d react a little more violently than Vincent had. Then again, Five had been trained to kill, Vincent seemed to have fallen into violence as some form of coping mechanism. He thinks about some of the things he read in that file, disgust bubbling in his stomach.

 

“From me?” He asks, leaning back against the car door.

 

He’s jerked towards the dashboard when Vincent veers the car off the road and slams on the brakes. Five shows no outward reaction, and only blinks when the man pulls out that big hunting knife from earlier and aims it at him. For a guy who supposedly maims for fun, he really doesn’t know how to hold a knife properly.

 

“Why’re you and your mental crew followin’ me?” Vincent demands. “Tell me or I’ll gut you.”

 

“Get that out of my face, it’s pathetic.” Five scoffs at the knife.

 

“Pathetic?” Vincent echoes, eyes slightly big with surprise. “I’m pathetic, he says, like I’m the one cowering behind a brick wall.” He mutters, pulling back and running a hand through his hair.

 

Five watches him curiously as he continues to mumble to himself, it doesn’t seem like he’s addressing any spirits that might be in the car. No, instead it seems like he’s having an entire conversation, a back and forth between himself and himself only. It’s a bit unsettling, but Vincent’s file detailed that he had evidence of a lot of mental problems.

 

“No, no, don’t say that.” Vincent huffs, glaring down at the steering wheel. “Tosser.” He knocks himself in the temple roughly with a hard palm, seeming rather agitated.

 

“Hey,” He snaps, uncomfortable, Vincent looks over at him warily. There’s an unsettling stunned expression on his face, like he had forgotten Five was there at all. “My family needs to be warned, you need to come with me.” He says.

 

“Why should I?” Vincent sits back in his seat, he twists his neck and looks back in the backseat with a small scowl.

 

“Information,” Five replies, earning a quirk of Vincent’s eyebrow. “You come with me, I’ll tell you why we’re following you and what’s going on.” He promises.

 

“You have powers…” He eyes Five warily. “Does your… family all have powers?” He asks quietly.

 

“Yes.” He nods.

 

“Were you adopted?” It’s out as soon as Five answers, Vincent leaning in a bit closer. There’s an interested sparkle in his eyes, it’s understandable considering he might not have ever met anyone with powers like theirs.

 

“Yes, why?” He asks cautiously.

 

“The man,” He says, then repeats himself. “The man…” He murmurs under his breath, voice strained and distressed. “Mum said… He came to her, she said…” He whispers.

 

“What man?” Five demands.

 

“The rich man, he offered her money. You’re the family, aren’t ya?” He asks, wide eyes turning to look at Five, a thin sheen of tears glistening in them.

 

“Reginald Hargreeves offered your mother money for you?” He asks.

 

“I-I don’t know his name, when I was a lad…” He lets out a breathless laugh, pushes his hair back from his eyes only for it to bounce back into place. “Mazzer, this is them!” He turns in his seat, grinning brightly.

 

Five gazes into the back seat blankly, finding no evidence of a spirit but knowing one had to be there. He could only hope that this Mazzer character protected Vincent like Ben did Klaus. Obviously, the young man needed all the help he could get, in the condition he’s in. Five didn’t know that someone could manage to seem so fragile while being actually extremely dangerous. It’s rather impressive actually, it must do him wonders if he knows how to use it properly.

 

“We can tell you what’s going on, we just have to find my family.” He explains.

 

“Right, right…” He goes to start up the car, then pauses. “No, no wait…” He takes his hand off the gear shift, anxious fingers wiggling in the air.

 

“What?” Five demands.

 

“I know, shut up!” Vincent snarls, and it’s obviously not directed at Five. “Just let me think, let me think…” He crosses his arms over the top of the wheel and buries his head in them, whispering to himself.

 

This is going to be a lot harder than he thought.

 

-

 

After searching for a good two and a half hours, Diego has come to the conclusion that Luther is a fucking chump and this was a terrible idea. They couldn’t find Vincent, couldn’t locate anyone willing to discuss his whereabouts, and when they went back to the bar they visited earlier they were immediately escorted out. Obviously, someone didn’t want them nosing about, which while understandable, is also incredibly annoying.

 

They end up right back at the motel, and when they enter, Five is nowhere to be found. Diego sinks down onto the bed their brother had been occupying when they left, waiting for Luther to check the other room. He had already come to the realization that the young man had probably left, out on the town searching for Vincent like they had. Hopefully he had better luck than they did, considering it felt like they had wasted a lot of time doing almost nothing.

 

“He’s gone.” Luther says upon re-entering the room, Allison sits down next to Diego and their shoulders brush.

 

“No shit.” Diego mutters, dropping his face in his hands. “How are we supposed to convince this guy of anything if we don’t have any proof?” He questions.

 

“I’m starting to like the concept of just hitting him a little bit and knocking him out.” Allison says, only partly joking, Diego huffs in mild amusement.

 

“Five’s probably gonna be angry.” Vanya says, pulling herself onto the dresser that had an old-fashioned TV atop it.

 

“Maybe he’ll find Klaus.” Luther offers optimistically.

 

“This guy has lived here almost all of his life; he knows all the ins and outs.” Diego argues, shaking his head. “We’ll never find him now that he knows we’re looking for him.”

 

“Well” Allison is cut off by something shattering the nearby window, smoke suddenly flooding the room. As soon as smoke starts to fill the motel room, gunfire starts going off.

 

Diego grabs Allison by the shoulder and yanks her to the floor alongside him, already crawling towards the connecting door. Luther beats him to it, Vanya held protectively against him. They enter the adjacent room, shutting the door behind them and locking it. The gunfire has yet to cease, but it doesn’t seem to be targeted towards the room they’re in just yet.

 

“What the hell is going on?!” Allison demands frantically.

 

“I don’t know, but we need to get out before they figure out we got two rooms.” Luther mutters crouched in front of the window and peering out from behind the curtain.

 

“Where the hell is Five?” Diego grunts in frustration, he shuffles past Vanya, briefly touching her shoulder in reassurance before scooting up next to his brother.

 

“What if he comes back?” Vanya asks worriedly.

 

“Five can take care of himself, he’s a highly trained assassin.” Luther says with a wave of his hand.

 

“What are we supposed to do then?” Allison snaps.

 

“I dunno, I’m thinking!” Luther hisses, Diego rolls his eyes.

 

Luther thinking under pressure is highly unlikely. The gunfire slows to a stop, the four siblings fall silent as they strain to hear anything. There’s a distant siren, and Diego knows they’re going to get caught in some serious shit if they don’t bail now. The problem is that their attackers were probably just outside waiting to waste them.

 

“I have a plan.” Diego says, all eyes turning to him.


End file.
